Brown Missing Financial Information on 2 Million in Donations

The Patriot Ledger reported that Scott Brown has over 2 million in donations that are not properly categorized, employer information is missing for a significant chunk of donations, approximately 16 percent of his large donations.

Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown’s re-election campaign has failed to disclose employment information for contributors who collectively donated more than $2 million, a review of Federal Election Commission filings shows.

Nearly 16 percent of campaign contributions during the 20-month period from the start of the 2011-2012 election cycle until the middle of August came from individuals who did not provide the names of their employers..
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The FEC requires campaigns to disclose an individual donor’s name, employer, occupation, zip code, state, date of contribution, and amount. This applies to contributions over $200 during an election cycle, which, under federal rules, must be itemized.

In some cases you have to scratch your head, The Patriot Ledger noted that Scott Brown doesn’t know Bob Dole (even though he is very familiar with Elizabeth Dole’s web site). In a quick scan I noticed locally Scotty’s team apparently doesn’t know Holly Robichaud. Poor Holly, I’ll resist the urge to make a bad Lone Republican joke. Obviously, you cannot always get all the required information and you need to show a good faith effort in attaining the information. But as the Patriot Ledger noted there are large chunks of donations that groups like Opensecrets who categorize industries that donate to a candidate are not able to do so. By filing donations without employer information a candidate in theory could hide those donations.

For instance, in just one day – June 21, 2011 – more than 27 health care professionals at Coordinated Health in the Allentown, Penn. area contributed more than $37,000 to Brown’s campaign. Brown’s federal campaign filings included the home cities, states, and zip codes of those individuals, but failed to disclose the employer or occupation for all 27.

A sort on the empty employer field in Brown’s Federal Election Commission filings (Candidate ID : S0MA00109) and a scan on addresses in NYC, I found John Griffin who runs Wall St. hedge fund Blue Ridge Capital. Here is a recent article on John Griffin, seems like I wasn’t the only one who was able to figure out who he was (emphasis mine):

as an individual, he has given plenty more to other Wall Street confidantes: $50,000 to the Cantor Victory Fund, the Super PAC of the Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor – a man who associates himself more with the corporate mob, not the protesting “mob”; a little over $2,500 to Romney for President Inc.; and $5,000 to place Scott Brown, the Republican successor to Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts and darling son of those looking to scalp the head off of financial reform, on the Senate Banking Committee.

So Wall St.’s favorite Senator is able to stick donations in the “other” bucket and hide Wall St. money coming into his campaign.